Dream within a Dream
by morning.chickenhead
Summary: A very different interpretation of the story of Beauty and the Beast. Elle is on a mission to find the legendary half-man/half-animal, whom she is certain she can transform into a beautiful being. But who is really the beast?
1. The Mission

Disclaimer and Author's Note: I do not own anything Disney-related. This story is quite a different interpretation of Beauty and the Beast, therefore the characters, settings, and plots are mine.

**The Mission**

"You can stay here if you want, but don't expect me to entertain you. And don't get in my way. I have very important business to attend to, and I will not be disturbed."

After a journey of three full nights and days, Elle was exhausted. But now that she had reached her intended destination, she only felt invigorated and full of new life. She grimaced slightly at the back of the woman who was already halfway down a hallway leading to the right of the great mansion's heavy front doors, perceiving her at this onset as competition. But, she reminded herself as her heart soared a little with anticipation, how could he refuse her, who had journeyed three full nights and days at just the rumour of his being? She was truly a beauty – in the sense of being pure of heart – for she knew she could love the ugliest of creatures, and she felt she possessed the power to transform him into a beauty like herself. Next to that slovenly servant woman, she had it all. And now that she was a confirmed guest in his home, she would soon win his heart and live a life of luxury.

The place was nothing short of a small castle – or perhaps a large castle, at that, for Elle had never seen one before. Only in storybooks did the two-dimensional painting of a castle make it appear habitable – nothing more than a large house – but now she could see that it was much more the size of a prison, or some sprawling compound, for as she had stood at those brandishing doors determinedly in wait of reply from within, she had not been able to see the edge of the building when she looked left, nor when she looked right. Inside, it was something of a labyrinth, at least from this angle, with stone-cast hallways leading off this way and that, some to her surprise diagonally; a single set of stone-cast stairs led upwards and crawled over the low ceilings of the first floor, but it led only to darkness and to as mysterious a place as any of those hallways. Elle chose the staircase as her first step of exploration, feeling intuitively that to move up would mean to move to safety. She lightly ran her fingers over the bumps and hollows of the wall which followed it as she climbed. But why should she think of her safety?

A hollow cry that bounced repeatedly against the walls and whooshed past her from above sent a chill down her spine and gave her ample reason to fear. But the adrenaline coursing through Elle's body only made her smirk at the high-pitched sound as she continued marching up. Safety, perhaps, did not await her at the top, but surely the signs of suffering which she less-than-cautiously approached would bring her all the closer to her ultimate destination – The Beast.

Suddenly a clatter of footsteps behind her on the stairs caused Elle to momentarily lose her balance. As the servant woman who had greeted her so coldly leaped past her, she grabbed on to the wall for support and regained her composure. "I thought I told you to stay out of my way!" the woman shouted over her shoulder. "This is not a place for fun and games!"

The woman must be running to attend to she who had cried out. No fun and games for her, perhaps, Elle imagined, but Elle had come on a mission. She had come to fulfill the fairytale dreams of her childhood, everything she had always lived for. And if Elle did not live through this night then it would only be a game which she had lost, and to her even death would prove fun – the ultimate thrill, something not even an animal man could provoke in her – and she determined to wear her confident smile into whatever awaited her on the other side.

At the top of the stairs, no source of light was to be found, but Elle felt her way along the single hallway with her hands. It was damp here, but pleasantly warm, and Elle thought she smelled the sweet bitterness of an aged wine on the air. She could get used to this place; perhaps death was like this, requiring only the calm and meditation of an individual who was content no matter where she was, yet commissioned by some deep desire to continue walking until she uncovered the primary source of fear for so many others. Just as her hand touched wood, the heavy, odorous wood of a door, Elle felt a chill brush past her, raising the hairs on her bare arms and calves. This place was full of haunts, to be sure, but they did not scare Elle into retreat, but only encouraged her to continue on her way.


	2. The Rose Bush

**The Rose Bush**

Finding the handle of the door, Elle gripped it and turned, eager to leave that cold spirit behind not because it scared her but because it bored her. Still, as if to demonstrate her bravery, she decided to leave the door open behind her; she knew that haunts could plague a person through whatever entryway or exit she passed, and preferred to invite their presence rather than run away cold.

Elle gasped in pleasant shock as she turned to the contents of the room, only to lay her eyes upon a beautiful, lush and sunny garden, entirely composed of thick, untethered rose bushes. She stepped forward and glanced back, only to see that the door had disappeared entirely, and she appeared to be entirely out-of-doors, with no sign of the mansion in sight. She shrugged and wandered to whichever direction drew her. Certainly this place was _all _fun and games, and Elle was enjoying every second of it. She paused at a certain rose bush whose pink petals were strewn about the ground around it as the sun above her clouded over. Even with the flowers dessicated in this way, the smell was so beautiful, and the petals so fine, that they must have once been the most beautiful in the whole garden. Only a single rose remained on this bush, and velvety and plush as it was, it looked sad and ill underneath.

I shall save you from your certain slow death, she thought, plucking it from its droopy attachment and smothering her nose in its delicate fragrance. Elle, momentarily floating from the soft feel of the petals against her face and the gentle smell they emitted, started when a rustling shook the bush behind her. She spun around only to find herself face-to-face with a tall, handsome man of about thirty years.

"What an honour to stumble upon a beautiful lady like yourself on a such a fine day," he said, sweeping off his top hat and bowing deeply before her.

"It is a fine day, isn't it," Elle replied lazily, dropping the drooping flower to the ground and reaching her hand out. The man gripped it hard and shook it for a length.

"Allow me to introduce myself as Barnes. Stanley G."

"And the G.?" Elle inquired coquettishly.

"Some say it stands for 'Good'," Barnes replied softly and close to her face, as though confiding a deep secret to her.

Elle's heart pounded a little in attraction to his flirting. But it only reminded her heart of its ultimate destination. "Do you know where I might find the master of the house?" she said, straightening up and trying to look serious.

"You mean of the nearest house?" Barnes asked quizically. He pointed in the distance. "There is a great mansion over that way, where is said to live a man who is half-animal, but surely you can't be referring to him. No master is he. He is only the lowliest and basest of creatures."

Elle stuck out her tongue sourly, her quickest and most natural reaction to such talk of the legendary man whom she had sought for so long. "He's a great man," she argued. "But...I thought I was inside the house already."

Barnes laughed deliberately and falsely. "Dear child, you are clearly out-of-doors. How else would you feel that sun on your face? How else would you hear the birds chirping in the bushes? How else would you feel the prick of a thorn?"

And indeed Elle felt the sun warming her face, and indeed she heard the birds chirping in the bushes. But the prick of a thorn? She raised her hand, then realized she had dropped the rose awhile ago in presenting herself to this increasingly irritating Barnes person.

"The prick of a thorn you seek," he observed. "Allow me."

And with that he reached out and took tightly her wrist in one hand, while the other gripped her shoulder and forced her body towards him. Now the only warmth she felt was his breath on her face and the birds' chirping dissipated from a hum in her head. Fun and games, she reminded herself. That's all it is.

And she repeated the mantra to herself – fun and games, fun and games – as Barnes ripped at her blouse with his fingernails and flung her to the ground. It was all too apparent to Elle that his grip was physically stronger than what she could loose herself from, and at intervals she sunk her teeth into the man's pale flesh and dug her own nails into his back, but he only threw his head back in harsh laughter at her attempts to disway him.

Elle thought momentarily to scream, and instantly remembered the spooky cry she had heard when she had been climbing the stairs. Perhaps Barnes made a game of raping all the servant girls of the mansion, she thought. If she cried out, would the woman who had run past her appear?

But she did not answer the question for herself as Barnes stripped her of her knee-length skirt and ripped past her undergarments with his teeth. Instead, she bit down on her tongue as sharp fingers were jammed up inside her and a nasty mouth bit her breast till it bled. Elle's eyes were shut tight for the first few moments, but soon something occurred to her that made them fly open.

Barnes was still fully clothed; even his top hat was placed primly atop his head. It was a picture too perfect, and Elle reached up quick as a cat and toppled the hat to the ground. Barnes let out a piercing scream. "Dare disrobe me, whore?" he shouted, seating himself across her and slapping her cheek with a crack.

"Yes!" she cried. "I want to see what's underneath!" And in a burst of energy, her hands flew at him, clawing at his suit until it was shredded. His own hands flew to his head to protect it, and he crumpled to the ground beside her in the fetal position. She was on top of him now, kicking as she threw away the remnants of his clothes.

Now she stood, towering above the cowering man, his belt threateningly stretched in her hands. "Ah," she said with satisfaction. "Now I see why."

And with that, she turned away and strode in the direction he had earlier indicated. She left her own clothes behind, but buckled the belt tightly around her waist. She glanced back and saw that Barnes was gone, as were the shreds of both their clothes, and she had a funny feeling of being watched. As soon as she saw a glimpse of the mansion, which indeed was the same one she had approached earlier, she broke into a run.


	3. The Pool

"You can stay here if you want, but don't expect me to entertain you. And don't get in my way. I have very important business to attend to, and I will not be disturbed."

The greeting was identical to the last time, and the woman gave no reaction to Elle's nude body. As soon as the woman had puttered away, Elle took the stairs lightly, two at a time, and walked quickly down the hall at the top. If she put both arms out straight, she could touch both walls, and she bypassed the door which she had entered last time, choosing instead the next, which was on the opposite side of the hallway.

In this she found a long and wide swimming pool, and she made no hesitation to slip into its cool waters. It was not deep, and she lay herself down almost flat with her face still peeking through. She loosened the belt and let it float away, and just relaxed, relaxed, relaxed.

A cry! Again the high-pitched hooting, like a woman in a nightmare, followed by a patter of feet out in the hallway. For this room had remained a room, and though Elle's body was excited by what had happened in the last, she was satisfied with things being as they seemed.

But, she realized, as her mind turned thoughtfully, perhaps she was still in that original room. The door had disappeared, and she had entered a mansion again, but she had never positively left that original room. The garden may still be outside, and if so, chances were she was still inside. What did it mean? Should she go back and look for a way out? No, she decided firmly. All she could do was keep going.

She closed her eyes and rested now that the screaming had stopped, and just enjoyed the immersion of her warm body in this cool pool. The room was silent for a time, Elle hearing only the shallow echoing of her own deep breaths. Then she heard a disturbance in the water, a slow and gentle lapping, and her eyes fluttered open in response. The rest of her body remained perfectly still.

At the other end of the pool was a large and unidentifiable animal. Seven feet tall, with dark, straight fur combed down to four sharp hooves; a long and lightly fuzzed snout dipping into the water where a long pink tongue lapped; a giant rack of bone-white antlers. But his fuzzy ears looked more like a bear's, and the tail was long and thick like a wild-cat's. The genitals hung down long and low in the back, swinging a bit from the beast's recent motion.

But now he was as still as she was, but for that slowly licking tongue. Could this be the man she had been dreaming of? She saw no indication that he was half-man, although his huge black eyes appeared sad and lonely, which surely could only be human emotions...

So as not to alarm him, Elle shifted her body as slowly as possible so her face was closer to him, and slid along the pool with her hands pushing against the floor. Her toes curled and pointed behind her, and the water made a barely audible hissing noise as she moved through it. At this slight noise the creature raised his head and rolled his eyes around, trying to find the source. "Here," Elle murmured, and he swung his great head to stare right at her.

If she was going only by sight, Elle might have panicked a little, because his expression seemed as steady and determined as one who is about to charge. But a thought-wave flowed through her brain which seemed to have no origin, and though Elle heard no voice echoing in the room around her, she heard – or fancied she heard – a few simple words in her head: _"Oh, it's you."_

"Was that you?" she asked quietly, shifting to a crouching position and hugging her knees to her chest. She was now only three feet from his face, and his breathing seemed loud and laboured.

"_Who else would it be? We're the only two here, aren't we?"_

"I could be going crazy," she muttered, giving a little titter.

"_Everybody here is crazy," _was the silent reply from inside.

He had gone back to lapping at the water. His two-foot-long tongue almost reached her, and she felt her breath catch in her throat in excitement. She tiptoed forward inch by inch, still crouching, until that one foot of distance had been covered.

She wasn't sure if the voice she heard now truly belonged to this ungulate animal, or if it was some heretofore unknown wave of her subconscious. But it was strangely comforting to her, even with her insistent and unwarranted courage. She was yielding now to a vulnerability she had not expected, and she wanted to hear more of what the voice would tell her.

"Am I still in the garden room?" she whispered.

"_Of course you are; you never left, did you?"_

"Oh, dear," she mumbled. "What do I do now?"

"_Why does it matter to you?"_ The beast was still lapping coolly at the water, and now the tip of his tongue just brushed at one of her nipples. It was the one that had bled earlier, and his ears pricked up at the taste. He drew his tongue slowly back into his mouth and regarded her seriously. _"You are an animal now,"_ said the voice gravely.

Elle looked down at her naked and bruised body and smiled smally. "Yes, I suppose I am. And it matters to me because I'd like to get back to reality and out of this enchanted room." She figured that if anything, this must only be a mirage of what she had come to find, and perhaps she should go back searching for that door after all.

"_And what makes you think that that was the true reality?"_

"Oh, I don't know, it was just the one I experienced since the day I was born," she suggested playfully.

"_And how many rooms have you entered since the day you were born?"_

6, 212.

Where did that number come from?

"_I see,"_ came the voice, as the creature turned and clip-clopped toward a red curtain that covered the far wall, which Elle hadn't noticed before. _"Well, I wish you luck in finding what you're looking for."_ As soon as his snout grazed the curtain, he vanished. And so did the voice. Elle frustratedly asked it multiple questions, and finally gave up in the face of its silence, crashing her head below the water and blowing a barrage of bubbles in annoyance.


End file.
